March 2004 Archives

Read a quote by Patricia Williams earlier this week about the common conflation between the personal and the private, that the personal is really that which is particular to an individual, and thus not actually private in the sense of not known to others. So, one of the things I'd like to maintain the courage to do, is to use my particularities - what seems "personal" about me - to push myself and (as seems to be my calling) those with whom I connect to deeper understandings about how we co-produce (interpellate) each other.

I left yesterday.

Raz entertained me last night ñ let me beat him at bowling, shared a yummy dinner with me, some beer and talk of ìreligion.î Heís a good friend. Carolyn was waiting up for me (even though I said she oughtnít), and is cooking dinner for us now. Weíre going to have to work things out so sheís not treating me like company all the time, but for today itís sweet. :-)

I just returned from a long walk up Rattlesnake Gutter Road. Beautiful. Met Amy & Kim and their son Miles (and a couple of big dogs) ñ kind people. On the way back, stopped in at the most beautiful garden Iíve ever seen. Michael Mayer (sp?) said heís worked on it for 18 years. I told him it felt holy. He invited me in and I sat for awhile, just soaking up its peace. Soothing.

Am a bit isolated here ñ neither cell phone nor pager gets reception here and I canít connect my laptop to the Internet yet. Itís ok though, sortof like a retreat. Been working steadily on homework (if you donít count the 4 hour nap I took mid-day). In general, itís ok; Iím ok. Yesterday I was quite numb and not too functional but now this new phase of my life has begun and thereís nothing for it but to be here now.

Ok. Confession. Drugs. Lexapro to be precise. Started on it right after we got back from NCA last year. Danny and Joanna were in the office when it hit. I don't know how else to describe it: surreal moment. Danny's sitting there telling me "you've been different since we got back from Miami Beach" and I was feeling this woozy compression of my subjectivity, like my emotions were being squeezed into a tightly compacted space. Luckily, that was the nadir of my body's adjustment...within a few more days the nausea and caffeine-like jitters had stopped and I felt "normal" - still with a wide range of emotions, but not SO wide that suicide seems appealing and rage appropriate.

Contrary to plan, instead of helping me and [the FP] pull it together, it helped me see how hard she was pushing me away and act on this knowledge as calmly as possible. Can't imagine managing my life right now without it.

Yes, I join the millions of medicated americans.

(I should note that this is a backdated entry. The first time I've done it. I wrote it on July 13, 2004, during what turned out to be a 14- hour crying jag. Since I had just started including the URL for the blog as my "signature" on emails, I really didn't want everyone to have access to that info at that moment ("now"), but I've been feeling that this needed to be in here, somewhere. So I randomly backdated it to March - the month of physical departure.)